If the overall result looks bad, try running Lights On just before this action to lighten the photo. The shadow clipping is part of what makes it look like bona-fide cross processing, but it can also be unforgiving of slightly dark photos.

10. Pross Crossessed #2

A Cross-Processing action. Warmer and less contrasty than Pross Crossessed #1.

Creates green-yellow highlights and warm-reddish shadows. Much more “acidy” looking.

11. SX-70

Emulates the look of Polaroid SX-70 film (which has now been discontinued).

Adds grain to an image – great for simulating film grain, or otherwise adding texture to an image that’s “too pretty”.

22. Sharpen for Web

Simple sharpening that is great as a final step before posting images to the web.

23. Boutwell Magic Glasses

Adds “local contrast” to an image, increasing texture, and the impression of specularity and detail. Subtle, but can make a big difference.

Unlike most similar methods, this action is self-masking to avoid creating a strong haloed effect.

Can work wonders on photos that look flat and lack texture, dimension, and depth.

24. Boutwell Not-So-Magic Glasses

Similar in effect to above, but slightly different. Acts on a larger area of the image, and might introduce some haloing. More subtle effect.

25. De-Blotchifier

Reduces chroma noise in an image while leaving the luma noise. Doesn’t exactly reduce noise, but it makes it look much nicer. This basically makes the noise in the image look like film grain, rather than digital noise.

27. EZ-Burn

Adds an edge burn around the outer perimeter of the image. Works regardless of image orientation or aspect ratio. Use only on full-resolution files (not for smaller, web-sized files).

28. Good VS Evil

An alternate method of dodging and burning, similar to Yin/Yang.

Has more effect on highlights and shadows at the edge of the tonal scale, at the expense of occasionally causing saturation shifts that make things look funky.

29. Warm it Up, Kris

Warms up a photo.

30. Cool as a Cucumber

Cools down a photo – mathematically, it’s (almost) the inverse of Warm It Up Kris!

31. Banding-Aid

Helps eliminate posterization in an image, especially in skies that have been worked over really hard by extreme tonal adjustments. Converts the image to 16 bits, flattens it, and then converts back to 8-bit. If you notice color transitions have bands in them, instead of smooth transitions, try running this action.

This action will flatten the entire image, and is therefore best as a final step before saving / printing.

32. Lights On

Lightens an image overall.

33. Lights Out

Darkens an image overall.

Color Blind

These actions are specifically for converting images to B&W and toning them. Effects range from extreme to mild. Many of the B&W actions are also great at various opacities over a color image – there are a ton of effects possible with that. And the toning actions aren’t just for B&W, either – try them on color images for some cool results.

Same as above, except uses Gaussian Blur instead of Lens Blur, improving speed at the expense of quality. Basically, the transition from in-focus areas to out-of focus areas will look more like a Photoshop effect, and less like an optical effect.

36. Old-Skool Standard – (new in v1.2)

The best compromise between speed and quality. Most of the Old Skool fabulousness in a fraction of the time. Recommended.

37. Super Old-Skool HQ

Like Old-Skool, but with a more pronounced effect (extreme, really)

38. Super Old Skool Standard – (new in version 1.2)

Super Old Skool with the best compromise between speed and quality. Recommended.

39. Super Old-Skool Fast

Faster version with a slight tradeoff in quality.

40. Magical B&W

A black-and-white conversion that creates an ethereal, dreamy effect. Can be too much on skin tones or images with very saturated colors. Try Awesome B&W for a similar, but less pronounced effect.

Retouch

This group includes only one action – the only retouching action we use.

50. Pro Retouch

This is a generic, action-ified version of a technique used in high-end retouching studios for commercial beauty and fashion. Made especially for retouching skin in tight to semi-tight shots. Smoothes skin and minimizes blotchiness and uneven texture, without eliminating a believable skin texture. It’s pretty smart about maintaining detail over hair, facial features, veils, etc, so you can be a little sloppy with painting in the layer mask. Basically this action blurs out certain patterns of detail, while retaining others.

To Use: Simply paint into the layer mask over areas that you want to smooth.

If you want to add a little sparkle to eyes, paint into the “Eye Bump” (use sparingly).

This action will leave less subtle details intact, such as deep wrinkles, pimples, scars, etc – you’ll have to zap those with the healing brush on your own.

Advanced Users: You can tune how much detail is brought back into the image with the four gray-looking layers inside the group (if the default effect is too strong). If you open up the resulting layer group, you’ll find two layer sets, each containing two layers.